Eagles starters will sit down vs. Jets but competition heats up

Tuesday

Aug 27, 2013 at 12:01 AMAug 27, 2013 at 5:30 AM

By Ed KraczStaff writer

PHILADELPHIA — There have been repairs to four torn ACLs and two fractured hands but the biggest cut is yet to come and it has nothing to do with a surgeon’s scalpel. It’s the cut that will shape the Eagles’ roster for the 2013 season.

It arrives Saturday at 4 p.m. when all NFL teams must have in place their final 53 players. Already, there has been one slice made, that one coming Sunday when 12 players were lopped to get the Eagles’ roster to 76. One more chop must come by Tuesday at 4 p.m. before the big one hits four days and one preseason game later.

That preseason game will be Thursday (7 p.m.) in North Jersey against the Jets. It’s a game that will be played sans Eagles’ starters. Well, most of them anyway.

There is a battle still being waged at safety so, with the exception of probably Patrick Chung, who appears to have one of the starter’s spots nailed down, the five remaining safeties will play. So will most, if not all of the cornerbacks, but that’s because the Eagles are light on the corner after a broken hand suffered by Brandon Hughes against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Saturday night.

Cornerback Curtis Marsh is out with a broken hand, too, and Eddie Whitley was one of the 12 released Sunday after he injured his knee against the Jags.

That leaves five healthy corners, and one is rookie Jordan Poyer, the other a been-here-before Trevard Lindley. So expect the Eagles to bring in another corner once cuts are announced.

“We are concerned with those guys being out,” head coach Chip Kelly said on Monday. “That’s where postgame on Thursday will be a big day in terms of what becomes available. Our whole thought is we have to play with what we got, but that is a concern when you have guys at the same position out right now.”

Quarterback Michael Vick won’t play against the Jets. Nick Foles and Matt Barkley will get the majority of reps, Kelly said, and the team will try to get Dennis Dixon and G.J. Kinne some snaps late.

The first team offensive line will sit as will the three likely starters on the defensive line: Isaac Sopoaga, Cedric Thornton and Fletcher Cox.

Thursday’s fourth and final preseason game will be a chance for bubble players to try to win a job and for reserves to win roles that will get them on the field during the regular season.

At safety, it will be for a starting job. Nate Allen has been the starter in the first three preseason games, but nothing is being handed to him.

“There’s tension, but we’ve all been through it before, most of us. You just go out and play,” Allen said. “You can’t sit there and worry about it and make your nerves go crazy, then you go out there and play terrible. You just have to go out there and play ball like it’s a playoff game.”

Kelly said that a safety will likely be cut, which would leave five to make the roster. With Chung a lock, that leaves five — Allen, rookie Earl Wolff, Kurt Coleman, Colt Anderson and David Sims — vying for four spots.

Veteran Kenny Phillips was cut Sunday after an injury prevented him from playing the last two games.

“Our safeties are huge for us on special teams,” Kelly said. “We didn’t get a lot of special teams work out of (Phillips).”

The linebacker position poses an entirely different problem.

There are 12 players battling for seven, maybe eight jobs. Jamar Chaney was one of the surprise cuts Sunday, since he had been with the team since 2010.

“It’s not that he doesn’t fit the scheme, it’s just that we can’t keep everybody,” Kelly said. “It becomes a numbers game. Someone had to go at the inside linebacker position at this point in time and you have to make decision. You can’t say, ‘Hey, give me a couple more days.’ It has to be done.”

Connor Barwin, Mychal Kendricks and DeMeco Ryans are locks. Trent Cole is close to a lock. So that’s four spots. Contending for the final three or four jobs are Brandon Graham, Jake Knott, Travis Long, Casey Matthews, Chris McCoy, Adrian Robinson, Emmanuel Acho and Everette Brown. Of that group, Knott and Matthews may be frontrunners but Acho led the team with six tackles against the Jaguars while Brown and Long had sacks late in the game to help seal the Eagles’ 31-24 win. And, of course, Graham is a former No. 1 draft pick.

“Oh no,” Knott said, when asked if, because he is an inside linebacker like Chaney, he felt like he may have won a spot.

“You have to come in and work every day. Your job is on the line every single day,” he said. “That’s one of the biggest things, I’m going to come in and treat it that way, work and try to get better every single day to keep myself around here.”

Matthews played in Kelly’s system at Oregon and played well against Jacksonville. He may, however, never live down the stigma of appearing overmatched his rookie season when he was thrown into the starting lineup at middle linebacker despite not having the benefit of an offseason due the lockout.

“You see guys they release and, obviously, you look at Chaney out with the twos, so that was a shocker, but again it’s opportunity for guys to step up,” Matthews said. “You can’t change your mindset.”

Ed Kracz: 215-345-3069; email: ekracz@calkins.com; Twitter: @kracze

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